Social tensions and lawlessness - EDITORIAL

Sri Lanka seems to be sinking further and deeper into the doldrums. As the cost of living continues to rise beyond the reach of a majority of the people, tempers fray and stories of people taking the law into their hands are becoming commonplace practice.
On Saturday, we witnessed an ugly spectacle of growing social tensions breaking out into violent conflict at a prominent shopping centre in the heart of Colombo.

‘Economynext’ in November 2022 reveled that in the first nine months of the past year, 435 homicides were committed. Data also showed there had been an increase in vehicular theft, with the year’s figure totaling 1,406 until September 2022. Of these 12 were theft of buses, 25 vans, 16 lorries, 14 cars and 311 three wheelers. 1,016 motorcycles and 12 other vehicles were also stolen between January and September 2022.
One-thousand cases of rape, including statutory rape and sexual abuse of children have been reported around the island. Up to 199 cases of rape, 951 cases of statutory rape and 273 cases of child rape were reported between January to September.

In what appears to be a continuing trend of lawlessness, earlier last month a city-based billionaire businessman was found murdered at Colombo’s general cemetery in Kanatte and a young female university student had her throat slit in broad daylight, adjacent to the campus.
It is in this light; we have to view the shocking incident which created waves on Saturday. An irate customer was manhandled and beaten up by employees of a particular shopping centre in the city. In a statement the company claimed the customer started the violence.

Whatever the reason, the use of violence to settle problems cannot be tolerated.
Despite the economic meltdown, this country has not reached the status of a failed state where the law does not operate.
In all areas of this country, the forces of law and order are situated within easy reach of the public. Our people need to be taught that violence is a crime and it is punishable by law.
In the case of the fracas at the shopping centre, it was one which attracts many tourists. Unfortunately, the day’s events will certainly not be a boon to tourism in the country. Rather, it will certainly generate bad reviews in tourist ranking websites like ‘Tripadvisor’.

Unfortunately, ‘Tripadvisor around four years ago took one of our shopping centres to task for their undiplomatic handling of situations where staff were accused of treating customers (foreign) abusively. A similar bad review is certainly not going to help the cause of tourism in the country.
Senior management and staff, especially in malls which attract large crowds need to be given lessons in anger management and diplomacy in customer relations.
A golden rule one must follow and is normally followed by all businesses is that the customer is never wrong. 
In India, customers are treated akin to Gods.

Saturday’s incident was bad. But management’s reaction via a statement to the press made matters worse. The establishment did not offer its patrons or the public an apology for the unseemly public spat. They merely made accusations against its customer.
Today tourism is the number one foreign exchange earner in the country and all efforts have to be made to ensure tourists do not have a bad impression of the country even before they reach this land. The country still owes billions of dollars to creditors and tourism government depends on increased tourist arrivals to boost its dollar earnings.
Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) Chairman told reporters on Tuesday (January 17) that tourist arrivals for 2022 were at a satisfactory level - 719,978 - which marked a 270% increase from the 194,495 tourists who travelled to the country in 2021.

The SLTDA chairman said tourism revenue in 2022 was US$1.2 billion. He added it was anticipated around 1.55 million tourist arrivals this year. During the first 15 days of January, 47,358 tourist arrivals had been recorded and, expressed cautious optimism that the 105,000 target for January would “most likely” be met and US$2.8 billion in revenue will be generated by the end of 2022. Tourism is one of the means the country can earn hard to get foreign currency, ugly incidents of public brawls are unlikely to attract tourists.
Let us not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs with arrogant and boorish behaviour.